Jerry Tubbs obit

Ex-Sooner Jerry Tubbs dies at 77

 

He was not on the list.

Jerry Tubbs, a two-time All-American at Oklahoma who finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1956, died at the age of 77 on Friday.

Tubbs was one of Bud Wilkinson's best players during OU's famed 47-game winning streak. In 1955, he picked off Texas three times while leading the Sooners to a 20-0 victory. The three interceptions remain an OU-Texas record.

"Every time I looked, there he was with the ball in his arms," Wilkinson said of Tubbs afterward. "That was the single greatest game ever played by an Oklahoma defender. I have never seen anything like it, nor will I ever see anything like it again."

The following year, Tubbs and the Sooners handed Texas another shutout, rolling 45-0 on the way to a second consecutive national championship.

Despite playing center and middle linebacker, Tubbs finished fourth in the Heisman voting, behind teammate Tommy McDonald, Tennessee's John Majors and winner Paul Hornung of Notre Dame.

Tubbs and McDonald, who split the regional vote, led OU to a 40-0 rout of Hornung's Irish that same year. Tubbs also became the first Sooner to win the prestigious Walter Camp Award as college football's outstanding player of the year.

Tubbs never lost a game during his OU career, and only lost three times at Breckenridge (Texas) High School. In 1996, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and in 1999 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

After his sterling college career, Tubbs became the 10th overall selection of the Chicago Cardinals in the 1957 NFL draft.

Suddenly, he found himself on a perennial loser, playing out of position as an outside linebacker. He was eventually benched, and then traded to the San Francisco 49ers after the seventh game of the 1958 season.

The following year (1959), the San Francisco 49ers moved him into the middle linebacker position, where he became a starter. After the 1959 season, Tubbs planned to retire, so the 49ers left him off their list of players who were exempt from the 1960 NFL Expansion Draft.

Tubbs was acquired by the Dallas Cowboys in 1960 NFL Expansion Draft. As it turned out, he would spend the next 29 years in Dallas — as a player, player-coach and full-time assistant coach. In the 4th game of the 1960 season, Tubbs became the first player in franchise history to start at the middle linebacker position on a regular basis, finishing with 149 tackles (48 solo).

Tubbs was an impact player on those early Cowboys teams and also rated among the top middle linebackers in the NFL. He had quickness, toughness and an unbeatable motor. In 1962, he was one of the first Cowboys players voted to the Pro Bowl, along with: QB Eddie LeBaron; DT Bob Lilly; RB Don Perkins; and CB Don Bishop.

He became a player-coach in 1965. In 1966 he retired and was working for the Dallas Federal Savings and Loan Association, but was lured back by Tom Landry to play behind Lee Roy Jordan for one more year. He played just the first three games of the season, until he suffered a back injury.

The following year (1967), Landry sensing that the Cowboys had a real chance at a championship, wanted to have Tubbs as insurance in the event Lee Roy Jordan should be injured. He came back again, but didn't play a single down while serving as a player-coach, hence he was on the roster and in uniform for the 1967 Ice Bowl championship game against the Packers.

When he finally retired as a player at the end of the 1967 season, he became Cowboys linebackers coach for 21 years. He coached in five Super Bowls, winning two of them. He died on June 13, 2012 at the age of 77.